http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_76/wsis/wsis.htm
> ESCAPING CYBERIA
> With final plans being set for the World Summit on the Information
> Society, the UN will call for deployment of Open Source software, to
> provide freedom of choice and Internet access by all citizens at an
> affordable cost. Excellent, but what if friends of proprietary
> software play the WTO card?
> by Jack Fegreus
> September 15, 2003
> “Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.”
> Anton Chekhov
> All around the globe, governments at all levels have been moving to
> embrace Open Source software in one way or another. Four months ago,
> the city government in Munich decided to switch 14,000 computers to
> SuSE's Linux Desktop distribution. Close on the heels of this
> announcement, the city government of Vienna announced that it plans
> to decide by the middle of 2004 whether it too will start phasing a
> migration from MS Windows to Linux on desktop systems. At risk for
> Microsoft in the Austrian capital are potentially some 15,000
> desktops and the publicity such a move would incur.
> Throughout Europe, governments demonstrate support for Open Source.
> What's more, in many countries in and out of the EU, proposals have
> surfaced in support of Open Source. The list is formidable and
> includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France,
> Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
> Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The Spanish regional
> government of Andalucia has gone so far as to decree that state-run
> universities and libraries use "free" software.
> Half-way around the world, the Japanese government has joined with
> China and South Korea to collaborate on the development of Open
> Source software alternatives to Microsoft. Japan has allocated ¥1
> billion to the project. Tux's globetrotting doesn't stop there, as
> desktop users in Brazil are learning a new kind of Samba. A number
> of Brazilian state governments have all ready passed legislation
> permitting state agencies to procure Open Source software. Taking
> that one step further, the state of Espirito Santo requires that
> Open Source software be favored unless it makes systems
> incompatible.
> Now the national government of Brazil has stepped in, as the newly
> elected President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is
> finalizing a policy announcement that will recommend that federal
> ministries, agencies and state enterprises install Open Source
> software such as Linux instead of proprietary software, such as
> Microsoft's Windows, in new computer equipment. While the impending
> recommendation will favor Open Source software, it will not,
> however, require the use of Open Source software. According to
> President da Silva's advisor on information technology, nonetheless,
> upwards of 80% of government computers that will bought next year
> may run on Open Source software.
> Excitement for Open Source is equally present in Africa, and that
> exuberance spilled over into the seventh annual Highway Africa
http://www.highwayafrica.org.za/index.html
> information summit held at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South
> Africa. Attending the summit were delegates from private industry,
> the media, and academia. Africa is beginning to overcome
> infrastructure problems to exploit the Internet to aid development,
> alleviate poverty, and further democratization. Non-governmental
> organizations reported that they are able to raise funds more easily
> ease via e-mail while illustrating their work on web sites. More
> importantly, community Internet centers, where villagers can get
> accurate weather forecasts, crop-planting information, and
> agricultural-marketing trends, are now bringing the poor of Africa
> on-line.
> Along these lines of reasoning, the Government Information
> Technology Officers Council of South Africa has formulated a policy
> to favor Open Source software. The Council calls upon the South
> African government, the largest single buyer of computer technology
> in South Africa, to take advantage of "the opportunities presented
> by the OSS movement to promote access to information for citizens."
> According to the policy: "OSS (Open Source software) offers
> significant indirect advantages. Where the direct advantages and
> disadvantages of OSS and PS (proprietary software) are equally
> strong, and where circumstances in the specific situation do not
> render it inappropriate, opting for OSS will be preferable."
> The worldwide drumbeat for Open Source in government reaches a
> crescendo in December, with the World Summit on the Information
> Society (WSIS),
> which will be hosted by the UN's International Telecommunications
> Union in Geneva. Just as the World Summit for Sustainable
> Development (WSSD) was a lightning rod for the economic and
> ecological differences surrounding the issues of just what
> "sustainable development" means, WSIS will be a battleground over
> just what is meant by an "Information Society."
> A key issue at the WSIS will center on the potential of information
> and communications technologies (ICTs) to transform the Third World.
> The dominant notion is that giving people access to Internet and
> information will by definition empower them. For those who subscribe
> to this dominant notion, the focus of WSIS must then be on the
> benefits of enrolling and incorporating marginalized people into the
> "Information Society" and thereby deliver them from Cyberia.
> Given that mindset combined with the intention to go beyond simply
> defining a vision of the "Information Society" toward a plan that
> binds signatories to a uniform global information policy to realize
> it, you can expect a lot of fireworks to come out of this meeting.
> Conference topics include the typical hot topics, including
> intellectual property rights and copyright. The World Intellectual
> Property Organization
> plans to hold a meeting on the subject next year. Meanwhile, Open
> Source software has been added to the agenda of multilateral
> government bodies. Reinforcing this interest, the Organization for
> Economic Cooperation and Development has been developing guidelines
> that encourage the use of Open Source technology.
> In particular, the OECD has identified an important correlation
> factor that helps to better explain both growth and the disparities
> across countries is the investment in ICTs. The data for this
> relationship can be found in the OECD's recent paper Investment in
> Knowledge.
Actually "OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2001"
http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/92-2001-04-1-2987/index.htm
data details (time for your OpenOffice 1.1.0 :-) http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/92-2001-04-1-2987/Annex_tables_excel/At1.1_e.xls methodology details: see box "Measuring investment in knowledge" in http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/92-2001-04-1-2987/A.1.htm
http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_76/wsis/wsis.htm
> To get a rough indication of a nation’s investment in knowledge, the
> OECD focuses on public and private spending on higher education,
> investment in software, and expenditure on R&D. Using this formula,
> Sweden, the United States, Korea, and Finland are the four most
> knowledge-based economies, as their investment in knowledge amounts
> to 5.2-6.5% of GDP. What’s more, the ratio of investment in
> knowledge to GDP in Sweden, Finland, and the United States is more
> than two-thirds of the ratio of investment in machinery and
> equipment to GDP.
> The conclusion is clear. Software investment costs are typically the
> second largest component in the OECD’s investment in knowledge
> metrics.
Note that
http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/92-2001-04-1-2987/A.1.htm
> All expenditure on software cannot be considered investment. Some is
> considered as consumption. Purchase of packaged software by
> households and operational services in firms was estimated using
> data from private sources and excluded.
> The software component of R&D, which overlaps R&D expenditure, was
> estimated using information from national studies and subtracted
> from software expenditure.
> Owing to a lack of information, it was not possible to separate the
> overlap between education and software expenditure; however, the
> available information indicates that the overlap is quite small.
http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_76/wsis/wsis.htm
> For developing countries, Open Source is the only way to keep
> abreast with the United States and the Nordic countries. Failure to
> keep up could accelerate divergence rather than convergence in the
> world’s economies. More importantly, the recognition that the local
> application of ICT goods along with the development of new local
> skills and training will improve local productivity growth just as
> much as producing those goods should be a familiar argument for Open
> readers.
> Edgar Villnueva Nuñez
http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_26/swlibre/swlibre.htm
> used this argument in defending a Bill in the Peruvian Congress to
> make Free Software the standard in government offices. Such
> government policies favoring or mandating the use of Open Source
> software have become a critical competitive fire for Microsoft to
> put out. In a rebuttal to a challenge from Microsoft's General
> Manager in Peru, Dr. Villnueva wrote "With free software one creates
> more technically qualified employment and a framework of free
> competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good
> technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market,
> and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up
> alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a
> higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers,
> service organizations, and consumers."
> Alex Mercer, a Microsoft spokesperson, pronounced a different
> viewpoint: "All customers, including government customers, should
> make decisions about which type of software to implement based upon
> a careful analysis of the long-term value that the software
> provides. We agree with this view and...encourage governments to
> keep their software options open by adhering to policies that do not
> favor one software development model over another."
> What's more, Microsoft is not without allies in the US Commerce
> Department. Bruce Mehlman, the Commerce Department's assistant
> secretary for tech policy, has stated that, "We are concerned by
> foreign governments setting preferences or mandates in procurement
> or research. Our view on Open Source is that the US and foreign
> governments need to be technology-neutral in procurement and R&D
> investments." Words like "concern" do not, however, reflect the
> extent to which the US government has opposed mandated preferences
> in other nations.
> At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Thailand,
> the United States pushed for governments to promote technology
> "choice," which was understood to include the choice of either
> proprietary software or Open Source software. At planning meetings
> for the WSIS, the United States has been working to trim language in
> the draft declaration that advocates and proposes Open Source
> software for developing nations. Nonetheless, language for Open
> Source advocacy in the Draft Plan of Action
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_single.asp?lang=en&id=944
> remains quite strong:
>> Development and deployment of open-source software, multi-platform
>> and open platforms, should be encouraged to provide freedom of
>> choice and to facilitate access to ICTs by all citizens, at an
>> affordable cost:
>> Actions
>> Create awareness of open-source/free software, especially in the
>> developing countries.
>> A "Programmers Without Frontiers" initiative, focused on
>> open-source/free software as applied to development needs, should
>> be launched and coordinated, under the auspices of the UN.
>> Intensify standardization efforts in the field of terminology and
>> other language resources.
>> Promote a collaborative network of open-source/free software
>> technology tools for civil society.
>> Create intellectual property mechanisms that protect and encourage
>> the use of open source technologies and development processes. In
>> addition, it would provide mechanisms that ensure that public
>> interests are taken into account when community informatics
>> processes involve the private sector.
>> Finance the development of open source technologies and open
>> software that will facilitate women's access.
>> Governments should encourage research on the advantages and
>> disadvantages of open source software, in particular on its use by
>> government agencies. Results of this research should be made
>> available by 2005.
> If subtle diplomatic efforts prove ineffective, Microsoft still has
> a "nuclear option." The Association for Competitive Technology
> (ACT), which includes Microsoft, is not at all shy about directly
> communicating its concerns when preferential legislation or
> regulations are attempted. In addition, the Computer and
> Telecommunications Industry Association (CompTIA), which also
> includes Microsoft, has formed the Initiative for Software Choice
> (ISC), which monitors Open Source legislation. This charter could be
> taken one step further, according to Robert Kramer, vice president
> for public policy at CompTIA. With no Open Source law to site as a
> good model, the ISC might draft one of their own.
> Nonetheless, a far more chilling pronouncement comes from Jonathan
> Zuck, president of ACT. He openly questions whether Open Source
> preference legislation might violate World Trade Organization laws.